The present invention is in the field of clothing and more particularly relates to the design and assembly of garments.
Garments have long been made by joining two or more panels of limp fabric to form seams, so that the composite surface of the joined panels forms a desired three dimensional contour. Typically, the design process for a garment includes the step of segmentation of the desired finished contour into planar patterns having shapes corresponding to panels for the garment. These patterns are used to generate the panels which may be cut from a portion of a limp fabric while that portion is positioned in a plane.
Thus, to manufacture the garment using the pattern, the patterns are used to define the contours of the panels on a portion of fabric, and the panels are cut from that portion. Thereafter, the cut panels are joined to form the garment. In order to efficiently produce large numbers of garments, for example in commercial production, the panels may be cut from elongated strips of fabric extending from bolts of the fabric. Various computer controlled systems have been developed in the prior art to accomplish the garment production from such bolts. For example, there are known systems for automatically laying out panels, accommodating a full range of garment sizes, on a strip of material from a bolt which maximizes fabric utilization (i.e. minimizes waste). There are also computer controlled cutting systems, for example using reciprocating knives, which very accurately and quickly cut the panels from a large number of strips at a time. Further, there are systems which can automatically position the cut panels so that certain of their edges-to-be-joined may be joined by sewing, or fusing, under the control of a computer.
One of the principle limitations of the prior art clothing assembly techniques is that automatic, or computer controlled, joining systems can only effectively perform panel edge joining in a flat plane. That is, the seam must lie in a plane. Since many garments include seams which may be formed in a flat plane, automated systems have been very effective in enabling the efficient production of garments. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,699,591 shows a system for manufacturing simple garment which includes only flat plane seams which may readily be performed by known systems.
However, most garments must be assembled with at least some seams which are not flat plane seams; that is, the garment design includes seams which cannot be formed in a plane, or at least it is not known how to form such seams in a plane. By way of example, a pair of pants might be formed from two panels which are joined with an inseam and crotch seam intersecting at a saddle region, with the inseam extending between the lowermost portions of the leg portions of the pants and the crotch seam extending between two points on the top of the pants. Using conventional assembly techniques for such pants, one of these seams is first formed in its entirety and then the other is formed. This operation cannot be performed with flat plane seams. In order to assemble such garments in the prior art, these non-flat plane seams cannot be formed using known automated seam joining systems, but rather must be formed either by hand or, more typically, human operator-controlled feeding of the panels to a sewing machine (or other type of joining) head. Consequently, the labor cost is relatively high compared to that encountered for a garment which might be assembled entirely by a computer system.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method of garment assembly.
It is another object to provide a method of assembly of pants using flat plane seam joining techniques.